


Epilogue: Unlucky Charms (a.k.a. What B Gave V For Her Last Vendetta)

by btvsp2082



Series: Between Seacrest and Revello [5]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-18 23:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2366291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/btvsp2082/pseuds/btvsp2082
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-series for both shows. And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epilogue: Unlucky Charms (a.k.a. What B Gave V For Her Last Vendetta)

**Author's Note:**

> This is the capper to the whole magilla. But there's still a little more coming. I wrote a bunch of scenes that take place during various episodes, in various seasons, that didn't fit within the main stories. Look for those soon if you're still reading.
> 
> Oh, and lyrics to the Beatles' "Help," are reproduced at the end of the epilogue.
> 
> I continue to own nothing. Hope you enjoy. :)

{...About Two Years Later...}

Vinnie Van Lowe stepped outside the confines of LAX. A limo beckoned, its back passenger door open in welcome. Grinning, he slipped on his shades, flung his ratty duffel over his shoulder, and strolled to the waiting chariot. He threw his duffel inside, got in himself, and shut the door. Within moments, the limo was slowly navigating through airport traffic.

“How was the Riviera, Mr. Van Lowe?” a voice suddenly asked, and hearing it caused Vinnie to jump out of his skin. “Two months, wasn’t it? You look tan.”

Vinnie lowered the sunglasses on his nose, trying to play it cool. He found the source of the voice sitting in the long leather seat across from his. His fellow passenger half-hid in shadow, but he could definitely see--

“No offense, but, little color around the face? Goes a long way with the senoritas, my friend.”

He got nothing, except chilly.

“Hey, whatever waves your flag. Feelin’ that whole ‘Batman’ vibe...has to be the coat.”

Still no reaction.

“So uh, those suits at the top really know how to disappear a guy with class. Make sure you tell Mr. Wolfram and Mr. Hart I said, ‘Danke Schoen’ from the bottom of my shorts.”

“We’ve been under new management since your ‘disappearance’...mine. Name’s Angel,” the man in black revealed, leaning forward so the little bit of light that shone through from above, highlighted his vampiric features. ”It’s a long ride, Vinnie. Long enough to hear you come clean.” 

Vinnie swallowed, instantly forgetting how metrosexual he found the name. “About what?”

“The murder of Keith Mars.”

 

________

 

“...are already speculating this is due to Liam Fitzpatrick, the bar’s owner, being recently acquitted on all charges. Fire crews are still working to put out the blaze. We’ll have more as this story develops,” said a car’s radio somewhere on the street.

Veronica heard it distantly, more focused on watching “The River Styx” burn. There was definitely a fire, but no one trying to extinguish it. What the copters and the gawkers safely behind police/Tara’s mystical barriers didn’t see, was the battle that raged. Willow’s glamour made sure of that.

As Veronica saw the truth, she thought about another news report from thirteen months ago.

_{“Four UCLA seniors made a shocking discovery today. ‘Minimalist camping’ enthusiasts, Kate Walsh and Beth Little, along with their boyfriends, Dylan Hargrove and Nick Jacobs, had planned to spend their Spring Break isolated in the Mohave Desert, surviving off the contents of their backpacks and their surroundings._

_“While searching for a campsite, the four friends came across an area that at first, seemed to serve as a tragic warning of what could happen if they weren’t prepared...”}_

 

Soon it cut away from the anchor to a pre-recorded piece. A reporter asked each of the students what they saw. Vultures circling, they’d said. And when they got closer, two bodies partially exposed in the sand. One had been picked clean. The other was fairly fresh.

Nick had recognized him as that guy who wrote that book about the Lilly Kane murder. Later, dental records on the other body revealed it to be the long-MIA, Cormac Fitzpatrick. Theories abounded in the succeeding weeks about their connection.

 

______

 

Nature didn’t kill Cormac or her father. Bullets from close range did, and it didn’t take Veronica long to discover why and who. But not that first night.

During a random stop amidst channel surfing, she and Buffy tuned in just in time to see the story they’d had no reason to expect. She had no memory of the rest of that night; she’d have to rely on her girlfriend’s. Just as Buffy would on hers, of the day they’d found Joyce.

If they ever asked each other about those days. Which they weren’t going to, because those days never happened. There was just before...and then there was after.

_{“Oh, so you know? You’re only allowed to die metaphorically.”}_

_{“Dad, do me a favor...Don't get murdered...”}_

 

He didn’t listen. Maybe if he’d told her he was investigating in secret again, he’d be alive tonight. Maybe if she’d paid attention to his face every time the latest bad news came from Leo and Sacks, and saw how much it ate at him. Maybe if she’d remembered how good a man he was, and that he wouldn’t have been able to sit by and do nothing forever.

But no, she just thought he’d been on a regular case. It wasn’t unusual for him to be gone for days at a time, even a week here or there. Maybe if she wasn’t so preoccupied, she would’ve noticed that he hadn’t called. But there were nerds who needed catching, who’d escalated from annoyances to murderers, and it pissed her off that she couldn’t nail them to the wall.

So many maybes.

As her eye caught the glint off the “slayer scythe” that the two Chosen shared--in Warren Mears’ case, finder’s _wasn’t_ keepers--Veronica knew she had to get her head back in this. She chucked a holy water bottle at a charging vampire, and while he growled, clutching his face, her compact-model crossbow fired at his heart.

Veronica Mars was no slayer, nor did she pretend to be, but she had damn good aim.

_{“...Because I couldn't live without you, and all I've been doing is thinking about what I would do if I didn't have you.”}_

 

Loading up the next bolt, she knew it would all be over soon. Then...then...she’d have to figure out how to live another day without her dad.

 

________

 

As far as plans went, this was one of Buffy’s more direct, but it was working. In the days following Liam’s trial, while she and Veronica wept and cursed the world’s cruelness, Angel was busy becoming Wolfram and Hart’s Los Angeles CEO. After learning that, and learning why the law firm had so vigorously defended two human drug dealers practically pro bono, the plan came together pretty quickly.

Angel had his part, they had theirs. Neptune’s two cemeteries were A-phase. Had to get rid of the newborns, and poking them as they rose out of the ground felt like cheating. B-phase, not so easy.

“The River Styx” had turned into one huge vampire nest. When the demons originally started moving in, Wolfram and Hart approached the Fitzpatricks. Neptune was untapped territory the Irishmen could help them mine in many ways (that naturally never linked back to the firm in any provable way). Including introducing mystical drugs like Orpheus to the townspeople.

Hence why they were burning the bar to the ground.

The fire was like a beacon to all the others who hadn’t been inside when Weevil and the reunited PCHers lit their matches. That’s exactly what Buffy wanted. She swore Neptune would be vampire-free after tonight. A task made simpler by her...uh, _their_ shiny, axe thing. There was more to it than sharp and pretty, she just didn’t know what yet.

 

______

 

Getting herself a triple decapitation with a smooth 180, she scanned the rapidly thinning battlefield for its co-owner. She owed Faith a lot, and never let her forget. It wasn’t just Dawn Faith had saved. She’d also saved Veronica from doing something that would’ve haunted the rest of her life. And Buffy never had to choose killing her sister in cold blood.

Faith shouldered the burden for them all.

At the time, they couldn’t have known what it would mean in the grand scheme. But just a few weeks ago, it meant that Dawn got to be alive to find her green, glowy, “Key” center and make a big, Hellmouth-sized hole where Sunnydale used to be. They thought she’d died in the cave-in, but as they’d peered into the crater, a green, glowy, energy ball rose out.

It was like a law that energy couldn’t be destroyed.

Once Dawn was in huggable form, Buffy didn’t want to let her go. She remembered joking, “And _I’m_ the family weirdo?”

Dawn wasn’t here now though; she was waiting for them in L.A. Under valid, “I’ve earned ‘Scooby’ status” protest.

To which Buffy replied, “You know you were probably some god’s--who’s sad and extinct now--nightlight, right?”

Then Faith made Dawn stay. Wasn’t it enough that Veronica let her drive the Saturn?

 

______

 

“I finally know what you get the girl who has everything,” Logan’s voice suddenly crackled over the walk-talkie. “Come check it out...don’t have time to wrap.”

Buffy answered immediately, Faith’s eyes meeting hers as she did. “You mean--?”

“We got‘m, Buf,” Xander confirmed next. “Alley a couple blocks from all the hoopla.”

With a single look, Faith assured that she and the boys could finish, and told Buffy to get over there.

“Veronica?” Buffy than asked into her walkie, throwing her sister slayer the weapon.

“Already on the way.”

Buffy felt worry coming. Primarily over her girlfriend’s physical wellbeing. That’s why she went back for her--Veronica “I took down a hell god with a Taser” Mars or no. Yelling could come later, she didn’t care.

 

________

 

They walked into the alleyway together, seeing Xander and Logan standing over a trussed up Liam and Danny. The two relatives were slouched against a wall, hands behind backs. Even with an amputated left forearm, Logan had still managed to beat the shit out of Liam, whose bloodied face didn’t look so smug now.

Buffy stepped up to Danny Boyd, whose face was unmarred, wearing the same, stupid expression as always. “Untie him.”

Following her father’s death, Veronica avoided deep depression and debilitating grief by finding all the notes he’d kept, all the evidence he’d gathered against the Fitzpatricks. He’d been in contact with the D.A., and was close to putting the brothers away for several lifetimes. Exactly the reason he was killed.

Despite the risks, despite the objections from the only person she had left, Veronica continued where he’d left off. And became a target. Several times.

They tried to make it an “accident.” No plates, unremarkable-looking car...that would’ve run Veronica down had Buffy not shoved her out of the way.

Giles said any other person would’ve been paralyzed, the way the speeding car struck--shockingly, it took a week for Buffy’s spine to heal.

In those seven days, while Veronica brought the D.A. what she had so he could file formal charges, Buffy was laid up, just picturing the driver’s face in her mind. One guess who.

 

______

 

Logan cut the rope from Danny’s wrists, and as Danny massaged them, Buffy bent down so they were eye-to-eye.

“Gonna kiss me?” he none-too-brightly asked, smirking.

Oh, she’d hoped for that. It was all the excuse she needed to take his hand, and with an easy flick of her superhuman wrist, snap it backwards into a position God probably didn’t intend. He screamed so horrifyingly loud, she imagined the vampires left at the battle getting chills. Figuratively speaking.

When his hand flopped forward, everyone except she and Logan grimaced. Danny might’ve passed out.

Liam decided to be less-than-bright, too. “You fuckin’ bitch!”

Words could not express how much hatred coursed through her. Hatred she hadn’t felt since Cassidy and that roof. She’d accepted the darkness within, as had Faith these past two years, but staring into Liam’s eyes, theirs didn’t hold a candle to his.

Buffy had just enough self-control to speak, “Somebody...stop me...please.”

A hand grabbed her white-knuckled fist; she knew who it belonged to.

“It’s okay,” Veronica whispered calmly, and said the rest for everyone. “Dad wanted him in jail, and that’s where his reservations are. For años upon años. Hopefully sharing a wall with Larry, Curly, and Ike.” Meaning those evil nerds.

Liam half-laughed. “Didn’t ya hear? I got off.”

“No, pretty sure you didn’t,” replied Veronica with a sprinkle of her usual cockiness.

“When this is over, you’re gonna be--“

Veronica held up her finger in the universal gesture for “one minute of silence, please”--her cell phone was ringing.

 

______

“Angel?” Several seconds later, she smiled, hitting “speaker” on the phone. “Say hi to Liam Fitzpatrick.”

#Rather say goodbye. Wolfram and Hart won’t be doing business with you or any member of your family,# Angel’s voice came through loud and clear, #ever again. Legal or otherwise. Which is bad news for you, because now that you’re no longer our client, we can make sure you aren’t anybody else’s either.

#And if even half of what Mr. Van Lowe’s told me is true, could be a problem. We didn’t wanna put him on the stand during the trial, because we knew no jury in Neptune would believe a word. We also knew the prosecution would eat him alive.

#Well, they’re gonna get the chance. Apparently there’re pictures, tapes...looks like he _really_ didn’t trust you. You may have gotten away with one crime, but good luck getting away with ‘em all.#

“Thanks, Angel.” Veronica was pleased, finally seeing fear. “I owe you. Again.”

#He gives ‘Liams’ a bad name.#

Hanging up, she listened to Faith come over Buffy’s walkie.

“All clear, B.”

“Then tell the sheriff he’s got some arresting to do,” requested Buffy.

“Roger that. Yo, Jerry!” Faith was calling on the other end before she took her finger off the button.

Given how Vinne’s term as sheriff ended, Neptune was desperate for his exact opposite. That person had been Jerry Sacks.

The girls stood, and Liam just couldn’t shut up. “Your old man didn’t even see it coming.”

Veronica stilled. “Probably not,” she agreed after a second. “But hey, neither did you.”

Her boot then crunched his face. “Who says they’re only made for walking?”

“I think we’re both butch,” Buffy said, squeezing hand. “Or, butch- _ish_.”

 

________

 

Everybody met up in Sack’n’Pack’s parking lot. Weevil, Faith and the PCHers; Logan, Xander, Buffy, and Veronica; Willow and Tara; Mac and Giles. That last duo had been inside a non-descript van keeping a satellite’s eye on the proceedings via laptop.

Mac became their technology person ever since Willow realized she could brain-drain a god. But one of the final things Willow did before outing her inner-witch, was finish “The Project.”

Thank god the timing worked out, or Buffy and Veronica wouldn’t have been able to afford college, let alone feed themselves and Dawn. Especially not Faith. And this was while Keith was still alive. He did his best, but they’d needed help.

So Willow and Mac blackmailed the Council.

To think, it had started with such an academic purpose freshman year. Hack into a few files, learn what they could, give Buffy useful, slaying knowledge. But when Quentin Travers tried to strong arm Buffy back in the Glory days, and she strong-armed them into paying Giles again, Mac got an idea.

Willow being Willow, she was of course resistant.

Mac had said they’d learn a lot from each other, and this was her time to shine. No one knew how to make money through technological blackmail better than she. It wasn’t complicated blackmail, either.

“Pay Buffy and Faith, or we sell your secrets to the highest bidder.” And like all old, rich white men desperate to cling to power, the Council played ball. Left the slayers comfortably well off, and the hackers proud.

They were first to hug.

 

______

 

Weevil got off his bike, and went to get his over with. Buffy and Veronica welcomed it. “Careful--big bad world out there.”

“You’re staying?” Veronica asked, surprised.

“Where else we gonna go, V?” With a grin, he ironically followed that with, “Somebody’s gotta keep the streets clean.”

“Hey, Weevil?” Buffy spoke. “Good fight.”

“You too, Hazel Eyes.”

Faith was next, but they didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to.

Moving on from him, Faith slapped hands up high with Buffy and Veronica, expressing wordless congrats for how much ass they kicked. She made her way to Giles then.

Buffy and Veronica headed for Willow, Tara, and Mac.

 

______

 

Seeing Logan by himself, Veronica took a quick detour. “Thanks. For helping.”

“I liked your dad,” he said simply.

“You should come with us,” she smiled sadly.

“Touched, but uh, afraid I have a prior engagement,” he informed, causing her eyebrows to rise. “Surfing. In Hawaii.”

This just made Veronica laugh. Logan followed her example. After everything they’d just been through, everything he lost, everything that changed...

“Why am I not shocked?” She shook her head.

“Dick’s already there.”

“He’s been left to his own devices in a tropical paradise? Never a smart move. Don't they discourage bikini lines?” she smirked. “I can see you’re needed.”

“His plan is to make me ‘The Armstrong of the Swells.’” Raising his half an arm, Logan let her put it together.

When Lance Armstrong lost a body part, he won title after French title, thus--

“Yep. Still not shocked.”

Dick wasn’t the only one who’d left town. Wallace had been back in Chicago almost a year, this time with his mother and brother. Alicia saw how bad Neptune was getting, and wanted her family out.

Wallace didn’t have to go, but he did, trying to repair his relationship with his mother. It was never quite the same after she’d lied about his father. He went under the condition that she finally face Nathan Woods. Things were...okay.

“He woulda been proud, y’know,” Logan believed. “Your dad.”

“That’s what I’m goin’ for.”

Here, Veronica was stumped. They were saying goodbye, and she didn’t know how. They’d been friends, enemies, dated pretty intensely for oh so brief a time, and it was just...weird.

“Promise you’ll keep your ‘Bad Boy’ on the QT. And try to be happy.”

He smiled enigmatically, and his fingers went Vulcan. “Live long and prosper, Mars.”

“Ditto, Echolls. Ditto.”

 

________

 

“Macs-a-million! All my base? Are belong to you. Your kung fu is t-e-h best.” Veronica gave her a high five as she walked to the van where “The Scooby Gang” had gathered.

Logan was gone, and the PCHers rode out, leaving a trail of exhaust in their wake.

“She just sat there! What about my fu?” Willow pouted.

“I like it,” Tara assured her with a kiss.

The couple was too damn adorable. Constantly. Veronica and Buffy had only themselves to blame. They’d encouraged the relationship’s growth by demanding all those double dates.

Mac missed her compadre in crime, but you didn’t stand in the way of adorable.

“Hey, I was the eyes of the whole op,” she argued. “It would’ve fallen into freaking shambles without me.”

“Me too! Without me too!” Willow shot back.

“Everybody was pretty vital,” Buffy interjected before there was a showdown.

“I have to agree,” Giles supported. “None of us would be alive to celebrate what was accomplished tonight, if we all hadn’t played our roles. You’re a formidable team...when, ah, you aren’t bickering like six-year-olds.”

His role was to get the cops onboard to do crowd control.

“This mean it isn’t the best time to complain about Faith fencing my pudding cup?” Veronica wondered.

Chuckles sounded throughout the group. Xander was the only one who didn’t join in, because he was reminded of someone who wasn’t alive to celebrate. Someone not Keith.

No, Anya hadn’t died here, but she’d still died.

 

______

 

Like Veronica earlier, all he could think about were the maybes. Maybe if he’d been honest with her, hadn’t left her at the altar...

“C’mere,” Buffy said, knowing what was going on inside his head, and embracing him tightly.

Anya’s death was something of a last straw. Sick and tired of the Hellmouth, Buffy took a part-time counseling job at the rebuilt Sunnydale High to watch over it. First chance she got, she investigated. In the basement, she dug up this seal. Looked like some kind of hatch. Research began.

It was basically a door into the Hellmouth, opened by blood. Gave her a decision to make. Dawn’s journey of personal discovery made that decision both easier and more difficult, but in the end, they destroyed the mystical hoozit for good.

They were batting two for two.

“Let’s motor. I’m starved, and these aren’t dousin’ the fire,” announced Faith, crumpling the empty bag of cheese puffs in her hand and ending Buffy and Xander’s exchange of comfort.

“’Cause that’s new.” Buffy rolled her eyes.

“I’m buyin’,” Faith added.

“ _There’s_ new.” Xander took a deep breath and got into the spirit of things. “And I’m sold. Wagons ho!”

Buffy went back to her girlfriend’s side and watched their friends pile into the van, telling them, “We’ll be right behind.”

 

________

 

They’d just gotten into the LeBaron as the van hit the highway.

“Positive about this?” Buffy asked for the last time.

“Neptune and I broke up a long time ago,” Veronica answered. “Floozy still has my ‘Dandy Warhols’ CD.”

Buffy then gently pointed out, “ _He’s_ here, though.”

“I know.” Veronica started the engine. “So we finished what he started. Because Dad loved this town. Moi? Rarely felt the love.”

“Guess he had enough good memories,” Buffy said. “Like us. You kept photo albums filled with. We both did.”

“True,” Veronica had to nod, pulling out of the lot. “Except during what I like to call, ‘The Dark Time.’”

“You’re welcome for me ending it, by the way.” Buffy’s smile stretched across her face.

Blue, accusing eyes narrowed back at her. “Uh, I believe that welcome is mine? Who was the bigger person, hmm? Who came to whose house and made lemonade from our lemons?”

Veronica hated revisionists. “Don’t whitewash history just because you can’t face your shame.”

Buffy gaped. “You’re washing! _I_ came to your apartment! _I_ made lemonade!”

“Pretty sure we’d still be estranged if that happened,” Veronica believed.

It would have been so very, very sour.

“But...oh. You mean our summer lovin’.” Veronica got it now, but sighed anyway. “You used to ponder what I pondered, Pinky.”

Buffy couldn’t have forgotten.

 

______

 

“Third grade? The slide?” Just a blink. “Blacking out the only memory that didn’t earn a Polaroid. There’s a word for that among us in the biz--‘convenient.’ Learned from Dad.”

“I...you didn’t talk to me for a forever weekend,” Buffy’s eight-year-old self finally recalled.

“Which was...?”

“‘The Dark Time’?”

“Caused by _somebody_ shoving Gavin Peters down the slide while I was giving him a cupcake. That I baked myself,” Veronica groused. “ _Possibly_ with Mommy’s help.”

“You liked him!” Buffy grr’d, remembering how much that bugged her. Only now did she understand why. “Him and his pointy ‘Alfalfa’ hair.”

Veronica hadn’t hidden her feelings. He got baked goods on a day not of her birth. It’d been a Monday no less.

“Ouch, low road. Blaming Gavin because _his_ mommy couldn’t comb worth a damn?”

Buffy frowned. “Maybe I wanted a cupcake. Because duh.”

Smacked with epiphany, Veronica pulled the car over to the shoulder. No wonder poor Gavin wound up with a bump on his head the size of Texas. Wow, it went farther back than they thought.

She wanted to make a joke, but thanks to silent yet relieved crying, she didn’t feel it. At least she had Buffy while she worked on living without her dad and keeping Mars Investigations alive. If anyone loved her as much as he did, it was her partner.

Buffy unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned over to hug. “Aw, Buffy forgives.”

 

______

 

Veronica choked out a laugh. “Thank god we aren’t playing baseball, I’d be frickin’ frakked.” There was no crying in baseball.

“Extra-strength missage?” Buffy was no stranger to that.

“Meh. Just every twenty seconds. Big picture, that’s way up from every half, right?”

Veronica pulled back and smiled, so as not to worry her. “I love you...” she said from the bottom of her heart, “...like a fat kid loves cake.”

Buffy’s nose crinkled.

“What? 50-Cent is a wordsmith.” Veronica then paused, as if preparing herself. “Loving you is easy--”

“--‘cause I’m beautiful?” Buffy smirked, going for the natural joke, and finishing her own lyric of choice.

“Because when it’s you, dootin’-dootin’-do-doo...” Veronica smirked back, “Well, count those chickens and watch Hell host the Winter Olympics--my carefully spackled veneer of inscrutable mystique gets worn down like a hooker on her last trick.”

She sighed. “Makes me wanna cry. Again.”

Buffy didn’t like hearing that. She felt blamed. “Cry how? In the good way? Please be the good way.”

Veronica smiled the soft, non-sarcastic smile reserved only for her. “I think...I’m a marshmallow.” It sounded painful to say.

Of all the things Buffy had expected, that wasn’t one. “Aren’t um, marshmallows soft...and also kinda chewy? ‘Cause my brain’s going to ‘Flintstone and Jetson Meeting’ places,” she blushed. “’Splainy. Before my brain can’t come back.”

They’d created the world’s strangest euphemism.

 

______

 

Veronica dodged by capitalizing on her girlfriend’s dirty state of mind. Seconds after she got her sugar, she ran her teeth over her bottom lip, breathing onto those just kissed, saying--

“Why don’t we do it in the road? No one will be watching us.”

“I love you too,” Buffy shivered, as there was just something extra to kissing your B.F.F. and lover, “seems like always, but, it’s a _road_. With probably gravel. That could wanna stick where _god no_...and feel all gravelly.”

“Turning down night air this crisp,” sighed Veronica before grinning. “Your nipples would’ve thanked you...” She ended their pit stop and got back to the drive.

“Okay. Few years ago, at a certain special Bennigan’s, I gave you credit for resurrecting a dead girl. A girl who was supposed to be garroted and weighted down somewhere off an isle in the Pacific--I cut a deal with the Dharma Initiative.”

That was the last time Veronica would do that.

“But it’s cool. It’s been cool. ‘Cause she’s been kept between us. Private, isolated, nicely cocooned. Until recently. More and more, the sugar to my years of cultivated spice, has spread her wings, even flapping ‘em in public.”

“So you’re a marshmallow because I bring out ‘Sugary Veronica’?” Buffy was trying to understand. “'Cause it's been a spicy car ride from my seat so far...mild spicy.”

“Wrong kind.” Veronica’s eyes were alight, though she remained on point. “I was referring to my ‘angry, young woman’ shell.” As Wallace had once called it. “You aren’t the reason it’s melting.”

“Losing him is,” Buffy rightly guessed.

And Veronica remembered to breathe. “That girl I used to be, she wouldn’t stay in her watery grave, and now she won’t stay quiet. She wants her daddy back, _a lot_ ; the one thing I can’t fight her on. I guess it tracks that I’d soften to--”

“--marshmallow chewy?”

 

______

 

Veronica glanced over, and took a hand off the wheel to slug Buffy’s shoulder. “Nice to have you back, Pinky.”

“Hands! Wheel! Two!” Buffy shouted while covering that shoulder.

“Did I hear right?” Veronica queried. “Did a Crash Test Dummy just come to life and challenge my interpretation of motorist law? Hah!”

The “dummy” in question scowled. “ _This_ is soft, marshmallow you? ‘Cause, I used to think I loved every ‘Veronica,’ but...”

“‘You mean from ‘E For Everyone,’ even to ‘Mature Audiences’?” Veronica chirped excitedly. “Yeah, sorry, I’ve foraged enough sass to last out the Rapture so, it’ll be a slow regression.”

 Buffy rolled her eyes. “Why’s melty anger cry-worthy? Tell.”

“Been hammered home that it isn’t...under most circumstances,” Veronica admitted easily, throwing some silent gratitude to the passenger side. “But in these businesses we’ve chosen? A necessary, critical evil, anger is. We need it to survive.”

“Literally in mine,” agreed Buffy. 

Veronica couldn’t believe what was about to come out. “My dad was murdered. That’s Harsh Fact #1. Harsh Fact #2? He raked up most of the Fitzpatricks’ muck already, so there was nowhere constructive to pour all the scalding anger I had on boil.

“Instead, it screamed its way out ‘til this throat was raw.”

There may have been Hulk-smashing of many breakables too, while she’d waited for her voice to return.

“Then shaazam,” She slapped the wheel, “just like that, ‘sad’ is all I got left.”

 

______

 

“I looked out for you; that was the first thing he said after okaying ‘Couple Us,’” Buffy recalled. “I...I knew he’d hate me if I let him dying make you...not you. I would’ve hated me.”

She’d pictured jaded and bitter and resentful to an extreme, and most stomach-churning of all, self-destructiveness. With one end for Veronica.

“You’re why I survived Mom’s--was my turn. Plus, I get a second chance. To avoid disappointing a dad.”

“’Hanky-Panky’ was a dad?” Veronica asked more acidly than was her norm, and without thinking.

That’s what Madison Sinclair christened Buffy’s father in their first year of high school. As if slaying hadn’t hurt her reputation enough.

“I’ll, um, be striking that from the record. Permanent.” Veronica also wanted to wash her mouth out for dipping into the same well as her arch-nemesis.

“I know I shouldn’t care, but...” But Buffy did, even if her father was an ass. “Am I stupid?”

Here, for the second time, Veronica utilized the shoulder and stopped the car. Good thing it was really late and empty.

She looked right into Buffy’s eyes and said, “You’re not stupid, Buffy. You’re Dumbers.”

Only she could make that sound affectionate, and only her saying it could lead into kissing again. “Honestly, you aren’t. I think we both have complicated feelings on parental absenteeism.”

“Wish we didn’t hafta have any.”

“I hear ya.”

 

______

 

How’d they find a scenic route on a highway? And speaking of...their conversation had certainly taken one.

Buffy brought it back. “Um...where’d your anger go?”

“Until an hour ago, my right foot’d been storing the last of it. Unlucky for Liam, his face was available,” Veronica shrugged, her smile of serene satisfaction not exactly innocent.

“Screw the Inquisition, nobody expects adolescence. And holy-moly did it give me more rage-o-hol than I could stand. But twenty-something disillusionment?” She made a scoffing noise. “It’s gonna take a lifetime to refill the tanks.”

“Which wouldn’t matter, except--“ Buffy began, feeling the blame coming back.

“--except I wanna stay in business. The family business,” Veronica completed. 

The possibility of failing because she couldn’t be as prickly toward the morally bankrupt, made her want to cry.

“I can’t be happy about being happy--I don’t know why that’s a surprise, but it is.” She read Buffy like a book, smiled another reassuring smile, and pointed at it. ”Hey, this wasn’t fake. We exorcised a demon; my house is clear.”

She could admit something now. “Thanks for not letting it kill me.”

Buffy came to an impulsive decision. “I’ll wear the ‘angry’ boots.”

“Don’t tease, Bertha.” Barely contained excitement was about to burst forth from Veronica. “It’ll be exactly like when Mabel tried to tussle in the Yard!”

That earned her laughter, but she wanted to ensure that Buffy understood what the offer meant to her. More kisses felt like the way to express that. Kisses which couldn’t escalate.

“How could you let me give the Dawn the Saturn?” she sighed longingly. “Cargo space.”

 

______

 

“You’re my best friend,” said Buffy quickly. “I’m supposed to help you reach ‘happy’--to the max--and I’m not failing. Good thing playing ‘Backup Buffy’ helps _me_ reach already.”

First and foremost, best friends was what they were. Everything else was amazing, and they wouldn’t give any of it up, but somehow, saying you were in love with your best friend (rather than just some girlfriend), sounded more...powerful.

More right. In their case.

Veronica’s head shook. “Backup’s a dog.” She grabbed Buffy’s wrist, thrust out her chest, and placed Buffy’s hand on it. “Put’er there, pardner.”

“This feels like bed fun. Reserved, hotel bed fun. _That way_ , Marsipan,” Buffy insisted, but did her hand move?

No, it didn’t.

Veronica pressed pedal to metal, and Buffy took her hand away. “Third time feels charmed. I’m optimistic.”

 

______

 

They rode quiet for a few miles, then this time, the horn got slapped.

“Let’s splinter Angel’s corner of the market! Isn’t like he’s working it anymore. Is his first office still under lease? It’s the halfway sleazy, noir rattrap I’d always dreamed I’d own one day.”

“Even post-exploded?” Buffy grinned lopsidedly as she reminded.

“Schnozberries,” Veronica “cursed,” punishing the horn again.

Buffy saw Veronica’s thinking. “I slay, you sleuth...sleuthing _while_ slaying...human evil, demon evil, ‘kitten gambling’ evil...major client potential. I’m very liking.”

“ _Paying_ clients--we’re expensive,” Veronica added.

“But not sleazy.”

“Can we keep the name?” Veronica gently turning up the volume on her car stereo.

“Have to,” stated Buffy firmly. “Why change perfect?”

 

_& && When I was younger, so much younger than today, _

_I never needed anybody's help in any way. &&&_

 

Oh boy. More waterworks imminent.

“If I didn’t hafta glide us around this bend, I’d ‘Look’ you silly.” Veronica vowed not to pull over. “Really do love you. It’s almost ridiculous how much.”

 

_& && But now these days are gone, I'm not so self-assured_

_Now I find I've changed my mind, and opened up the doors. &&&_

 

“’Cause I’m beautiful, right?” Buffy’ wasn’t dropping that, _her_ “Look” effortlessly covering both their shares. She rested her hand on Veronica’s knee. “But as much as I really?”

Veronica’s eyebrow quirked. “Was that a gauntlet thrown?”

 

_& && And now my life has changed in, oh, so many ways,_

_My independence seems to vanish in the haze. &&&_

 

“Coulda been...” Buffy questioned back, pretending to search. “I missed where it went.”

“There’s only one direction that ever makes sense...we both know that.”

 

_& && But every now and then I feel so insecure,_

_I know that I just need you like, I've never done before. &&&_

 

Whatever they did with their lives and businesses tomorrow, tonight, the hotel couldn’t appear on that hard to view horizon fast enough. The gauntlet was definitely down.

 

_& && And I do appreciate you being ‘round...                                           _

_So won’t you please, please help me? &&&_

 


End file.
